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Mines Auction
The government has cancelled the auction of 11 critical and strategic mineral blocks which were put on sale in the sixth round on account of poor investor response and lack of qualified bidders. The development comes as a setback to the government's efforts to ramp up domestic exploration and production of critical minerals amid global supply chain disruptions. In an annulment notice, the mines ministry said that the auction process for 5 mineral blocks was cancelled since no bids were received. The notice further said the auction process of five other mineral blocks was annulled as there were less than three technically-qualified bidders. Besides, auction process for Beku Rare Metal Block, West Bengal was also annulled. The mines ministry had in September last year launched the sixth tranche of auction for 23 critical mineral blocks spread across 13 states. The auction included 19 composite licence (CL) blocks and four mining lease (ML) blocks in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh,
Union Coal and Mines Minister G Kishan Reddy on Saturday said the Centre would set up a mineral trading exchange similar to the London Metal Exchange. In a media interaction here, he said the mineral exchange would be established as per the norms of SEBI. "Like the London Metal Exchange, we are going to set up a mineral exchange in India," he said. The proposed mineral exchange is expected to facilitate better price discovery for industries, traders and other stakeholders. Mineral exchange was made part of recently-passed legislation and the guidelines concerned would be issued soon, he said. Asked if the US tariffs would have any impact on the domestic coal industry, he said it would not be much. He further said the country exports aluminium to America in a small measure. Reddy said the government had reduced coal imports substantially, saving foreign exchange to the tune of Rs 60,000 crore. The steel-makers in the country have boilers built for using good quality imported coa